Benched's birth song.

[conned tractor]

cracking story CT

Not a patch on one of yours.

[Tingles]

Doing accounts in a medium sized company.

I got given an IBM pc rather than a WYSE50 terminal - it had SMART on it (spreadsheet, processor, database) rivalled 1-2-3 & Wordperfect 5.1.

Started doing the accounts on it and found that I completed the work in half the time - I was then sent up t'North to project manage a sales order processing system for two subsiduaries - with no experience whatsoever!!

Got it sorted, after a fashion and alot of false starts!

Then contracting beckoned...

T

[Coalman]

I was an electronics apprentice with the MOD - which meant that if I wasn't sleeping in the back of a tank somewhere, or playing in Land rovers on the test track, I'd be sat at a desk with absolutely nothing to do. This of course led to be trashing whatever PC that was sat on the desk whilst playing and trying desperately to fix it before my apprentice master came back and walloped me around the side of the head. This led nicely into a PC support role....I still duck when someone comes into the office to collect their machine!

Foxhill apprentice or the other lot at Corsham?

[alreadypacked]

Left school at 14 couldn’t read or write (Dyslexia). After a dead-end apprenticeship, I blagged a job in an office with a PA. Started my own business and sold it. I decided to give something back and volunteered at the Chamber of Commerce advising small businesses. They sent me on a course at a local university, who identified my Dyslexia. They set me up with an educational psychologist who helped me a lot. They suggested I do a foundation course and they had a new degree starting soon on Urban and Rural development. Half way through the foundation course the new degree was cancelled and I was sent to see the career adviser. After a short chat the adviser asked “do you want to have a job with your new degree?” Yes, I think I would like to work again. “Ok forget everything else, do computing, you will never be out of work.”
He was right, my first job out of Uni. was 35K with a consulting company, my first week I was on a project in Dusseldorf. I have been AlreadyPacked since.

[Mich the Tester]

Left school at 14 couldn’t read or write (Dyslexia). After a dead-end apprenticeship, I blagged a job in an office with a PA. Started my own business and sold it. I decided to give something back and volunteered at the Chamber of Commerce advising small businesses. They sent me on a course at a local university, who identified my Dyslexia. They set me up with an educational psychologist who helped me a lot. They suggested I do a foundation course and they had a new degree starting soon on Urban and Rural development. Half way through the foundation course the new degree was cancelled and I was sent to see the career adviser. After a short chat the adviser asked “do you want to have a job with your new degree?” Yes, I think I would like to work again. “Ok forget everything else, do computing, you will never be out of work.”
He was right, my first job out of Uni. was 35K with a consulting company, my first week I was on a project in Dusseldorf. I have been AlreadyPacked since.

I’ve met quite a few people with dyslexia in IT. In fact, there’s a very clever chap at the Amsterdam office of ClientCo who’s more than capable of designing complex system architectures for GIS and mobile telecoms services, so there’s no way he could be termed unintelligent. If this is the case, why do so many schools seem to let people with dyslexia down?

[Pogle]

Left home at 17, went to art college at 18 did HND in textile design.
Worked as a temporary darkroom assistant in a metallurgical & chemical laboratory. Then got made permie, took over all the photographic stuff for the company and did my City & Guilds in prof photography.
Got fed up and bored and took VR went to uni to do a BSc - to this day I have no idea why! I still don't have GCSE maths , I just knew I could do it.
Ended up with a 2.1 and was the only woman to graduate on my course

Got taken on the CSC graduate scheme and stayed with them for FAR to long!
Left to join a consultancy, we didn't like each other. I couldn't find another permie job, so started contracting and I love it, I love the work I get involved in and I'm never in one place long enough to get too bored.

[alreadypacked]

I’ve met quite a few people with dyslexia in IT. In fact, there’s a very clever chap at the Amsterdam office of ClientCo who’s more than capable of designing complex system architectures for GIS and mobile telecoms services, so there’s no way he could be termed unintelligent. If this is the case, why do so many schools seem to let people with dyslexia down?

The problem is Dyslexia is hard to diagnose, the only sure way is an autopsy

Dyslexic brains are wired differently, average brain is right and left, dyslexics is top and bottom. They have a set of tests that average person would get average score on all tests. Dyslexic person should get extreme results, genius on some tests moron on others.

Computing seams to fit with our genius skills.

[SlimRick]

Foxhill apprentice or the other lot at Corsham?

REME at Old Dalby....I was in the final year when it closed (coincidence I'm sure!!)

[EternalOptimist]

REME at Old Dalby....I was in the final year when it closed (coincidence I'm sure!!)

hey there. REME in Arborfield here, 1974, doing radar. We have hald a dozen apprentices on our course, it was way before PC's or IT though.
We actually got trained on half-ton mechanical computers, full of cogs and wheels and oil

[SlimRick]

Did some work on radar too - spent many a day sat in a field tracking silver ping pong balls inside weather ballooons Specialized in Milan and Rapiers in my final year. Who'd have thought I would end up working for a living after being in the REME!!!! Well, contracting anyway.